“O Lord,” the psalmist sang, “you have been our dwelling place for all generations.” Today more than any Sunday of the year, the power and promise and challenge of that testimony sings in our hearts. We bring to the forefront of our awareness this day:

------all the saints, the great cloud of witnesses we call them, who have gone before and from whom we learn what it means to be God’s children, Christ’s disciples, people of the Way.

------all the saints who continue to teach us and guide us by their example and their continuing love for us and for Christ’s church.

------all the saints going forward, far, far ahead to the saints streaming into God’s New Heaven and New Earth at the end of time.

The names of the saints of our own congregation we read aloud today connect us back a generation in a time frame that encompasses the visioning and financing and building of this sanctuary. All the saints of our own congregation since its founding of this church in Santa Monica 128 years ago takes us back another generation or two.

The saints of the whole church connect us back even further. Back to the musicians whose hymns we sing this morning, whose words continue to teach us about the God who sustains us. Back to John, whose writings from the Book of Revelation Jan/Joy read this morning connect us to that early community of Christians.

All the way back to the psalmist himself who sang: “O Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations.” We rejoice and give thanks to God this day for all those who have preceded us in faith. We remember that we are not the first to venture forth in faith, not the first to face difficult challenges, not the first to summon the courage to serve and carry on. The saints this morning draw close and beckon us now to follow them along the Way that leads to life and life everlasting. Remain strong, they say, be of good courage. We have walked the way of the cross and we walk it now with you.

“O Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” The apostle Paul used the word “saint” to refer to everyone in the church. But if I step down for a moment from the lofty sentiments of this day to really consider more objectively all that company who have gone before, I must confess that they’re not all what we might consider saint material. Just in my own family, I can think of some rogues and scoundrels. I bet you can, too. Even the saints of our congregation we’ve known close and personal, warts and all. We Christians are a pretty mixed bag, among us and even with ourselves at various times, a complex mish-mash of courage and complacency, of faithfulness and fear, of selflessness and selfishness, of piety and pettiness.

I am fairly sure, though I’ve never seen proof, that when the leaders of this very congregation sixty or so years ago had the dream of moving to this new site and building this magnificent sanctuary on the corner of Washington and 11th, that there were those who said: “Oh no, we’re never leaving the building we’re in right now. There’s nothing wrong with where we are now and I won’t give one dime for your crazy new building campaign.”

However, you know, all those rascals are our saints, too, God bless them. Rev. Mary Anderson put it this way in The Christian Century: “…we are where we are today because our ancestors in the faith raised their voices, made bold decisions and prayed and taught the faith…[but] we also had ancestors who sat on their hands, who cared only for themselves, who thought little about the impact of their actions on future generations…[We] are the spiritual grandchildren…of wonderful stewards who gave their all, and of generations of curmudgeons who threw water on the Spirit’s fire every chance they got…We are the descendants of both sets of grandparents. We have saints in our blood and skeletons in our closet.”

This brings us to this day and the launching of our 2004 Stewardship Campaign. It brings us to the choice we all must make in this season about what kind of saint we aspire to be. When, in however many years, our names are read aloud on the roll of the honored dead in some congregation somewhere, still worshipping God on All Saints Day 2024, 54, 74—will we, as Rev. Anderson put it, “be ancestors who sat on their hands or ancestors who raised their hands?” What kind of saints will we be?

You see, brothers and sisters, we who would be disciples of Jesus Christ are not just living our lives in this moment. We are not just juggling all the demands of work, families, church and soccer schedules. We’re not even just deciding what our financial pledge to this church will be in 2004. We’re doing much more. We’re laying a foundation. We’re writing our legacy. We’re determining right now, in all the choices we make and the priorities we set, just what kind of saints we will be. What example are we setting, not only for our children now, but also for all generations of Christians to come?

“O Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” God has called us into the church and placed us within the company of the saints. It is awesome. It is a gift and a tremendous responsibility. For the quality of our lives as Christians now impacts not only this present moment, this current congregation, the witness of Methodists in this city and around the world now, but for generations and generations to come.

The worship of All Saints Sunday grounds us in the faith and witness of the church through all time. It stands us on the shoulders of all who have gone before, that we might look out high up over the horizon and peer into the future. It shines a light on our lives, so that we might carefully examine just what kind of ancestor and saint we aspire to be, what kind of witness we will make, what sort of legacy we will leave. It provides us with this holy meal to give us sustenance and strength for the journey. The bread of life, the cup of blessing, given us by Christ Jesus himself. May it heal all your brokenness, clear the fog from your eyes, lift you up to higher aspirations and set your feet on a path of renewed commitment and faithfulness. Alleluia. Amen.

Allelia. Amen

Notes:

Mary W. Anderson. “Living by the Word.” The Christian Century, October 18, 2003.

William Willimon. Pulpit Resource. November/December 2003.